NEW YORK:
Oil prices rose about 1% to a nine-month high on Friday on rising US diesel futures and worries about tight oil supplies after Saudi Arabia and Russia extended voluntary cuts this week.
Brent futures rose 76 cents, or 0.9%, to $90.68 a barrel by 1608 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 67 cents, or 0.8%, to $87.54.
Both crude benchmarks remained technically overbought for a sixth day in a row, with Brent on track for its highest close since November 16 and WTI since November 11.
For the week, both benchmarks were up about 3% after Brent gained about 5% last week and WTI gained about 7% last week.
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This week, Saudi Arabia and Russia extended their voluntary supply cuts of a combined 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) to the end of the year.
Saudi Arabia will probably find it difficult to end its cuts at the end of the year without triggering a price slide, Commerzbank analysts said in a note.
Rising US diesel also lent support to crude futures with heating oil prices up about 3% and on track for their highest close since January.
Separately, the US confirmed that it disrupted in April a multimillion-dollar shipment of crude oil by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, seizing more than 980,000 barrels of contraband crude oil that violated US sanctions.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 9th, 2023.
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